I hate to say it and I am conscious of the risk inherent in public trials over the internet etc but this does (IMHO) merit another look via the courts - someone has, quite literally, "got away with murder" and it isn't right.

Sympathies, as always with the troops who were sent to Iraq and the conditions, stresses etc that they faced but the man lost his life due to wanton violence and brutality which MUST have been carried out at least with the knowledge if not the approval of senior officers.

If we want to be able to set the rules for behaviour by others we have to be able to face our own demons.

It is also emotive as besides the murder itself, of which there appears little doubt, there is the question of accountability & responsibility at the highest levels as Lord Dannatt has rightly stated. (Take the wage, don't delegate the responsibility).

I remember doing an 'Op Awkward' during OST in the early 2000's which involved prisoner handling. "Prisoners" were bagged by trained prisoner handling teams using (backward fitted double anti-flash) hoods, so the Navy prisoner handling organisation outwardly appears to have been continuing a practice supposedly banned by Heath in 1972 also.

Common sense would suggest that only non-combatants, should undertake the task of prisoner handling & thus avoid the occurrence of highly-charged emotive incidents such as the morally debatable incident involving the dismissal of servicemen previously

Being old enough to remember the outrage over the Northern Ireland "torture" alegations I am surprised that any "old" soldiers (and sailors/airmen ????) say over 55 can have forgotten the ban on such things as "white noise", stress positions, etc.....

In addition, anyone who read up on such American misadventures as Panama will have remembered the rather high-minded criticisms from British politicans and military spokesmen who basically said "that is disgusting, it is against the rules of war and WE would never do it. Even in Desert Storm similar protestations took place (as did later on, post-Mousa when the US torture of detainees in Iraq, Afghanistan, Guantanamo, and rumoured secret rendition camps). I remember in the 1990s a programme on the choosing of SAS recruits which showed them being picked up off attempted penetration missions and being "mock" interogated with hoods and in stress positions where the commentator carefully stated that this was NOT a British army technique, but that trainees were trained to resist such methods of "interogation".

So HOW any reasonably old ( say 35+ ) officer or non-com can claim to not know the rules defeats me, and as for the "professionals", i.e. the specialist interogation officers and NCOs, there is NO excuse whatsoever.

I'm afraid that the system fell down badly and Iwonder why (other than some sort of "let's copy the yanks" problem).

.I remember in the 1990s a programme on the choosing of SAS recruits which showed them being picked up off attempted penetration missions and being "mock" interogated with hoods and in stress positions where the commentator carefully stated that this was NOT a British army technique, but that trainees were trained to resist such methods of "interogation".

So HOW any reasonably old ( say 35+ ) officer or non-com can claim to not know the rules defeats me,
.

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To be honest, whilst the TV Commentator may well have been told it was not the British Army technique, there are those that would argue it was the UK Armed Forces technique until a lot more recently than some would perhaps like to admit.

This isn't to say the techniques are in anyway condoned, but a TV programme stating one thing may be far removed from the reality. Those partaking escape & evasion training, aircrew, special forces or as instructional staff within the last decade, may well beg to differ.

To be honest, whilst the TV Commentator may well have been told it was not the British Army technique, there are those that would argue it was the UK Armed Forces technique until a lot more recently than some would perhaps like to admit.

This isn't to say the techniques are in anyway condoned, but a TV programme stating one thing may be far removed from the reality. Those partaking escape & evasion training, aircrew, special forces or as instructional staff within the last decade, may well beg to differ.

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Those who underwent such highly restricted specialised training should have been clearly briefed about the difference between training to prepare them as potential PW, and the training of British tactical questioners and interrogators. Has prisoner questioning ever been regarded as an aircrew specialisation? - No. If anyone really got confused about the crossover, it was more likely to happen as a result of fun and games at unit/subunit level, without the benefit of authorised expert supervision.

Has prisoner questioning ever been regarded as an aircrew specialisation? - No. If anyone really got confused about the crossover, it was more likely to happen as a result of fun and games at unit/subunit level, without the benefit of authorised expert supervision.

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Agreed, highly expensive & dare I say it, 'skilled' Wafus are hardly likely to be wasted as prisoner handlers, however they are handled as prisoners as a routine part of training, much as they are trained at strangling chickens for fodder.

The average matelot of comparable Army rank to those directly involved in this particular incident, besides Optag (or OST) completed the handling course, in addition to firefighting, sea-survival, professional trade training, first aid training etc., only to later find themselves employed onboard a war canoe keeping watches in the Ops Room, maintaining their equipment, cleaning bogs & suchlike. They are more likely to have regarded the course as an additional burden rather than 'highly restricted specialised training'.

Possibly since this incident in 2003, things have changed. I certainly would hope so.

However the mechanism that permitted such a crime to occur was quite possibly sanctioned up until the point it occurred by virtue of the fact supposedly banned practices were in actual fact standard operating procedures.

From my reading of it so far only a Junior NCO has recieved any puns for a crime committed in 2003, so Company and Battalion level Officers and above had no idea this was going on?
Much like the US Army's Abu Ghraib debacle the chain of command seems to evaporate above the rank of Corporal.:angry4:
Hopefully Lt Col Mendonca and other Officers of the Lancashire Reg will be getting their collars felt soonest.
I seem to recall a Bootneck Ossifer and Senior were court martialled for slapping with a welly boot an alledged IED bomber in short time, can't have been a RedCap on hand for the Army bods eh?

Also good to see the Little Englander comments beneath the MSN news report posted in the OPs Thread starter.:sleepy2:

He died of suffocation so all the bruises etc have sod all to do with it. This wasn't some tricks they picked up watching movies, they obviously had training in it and are now being made scapegoats in the hope of hiding the fact that this armyis no different from any other army and he doing as he was ordered.

If the man wasn't a terrorist, and no one has said he wasn't, then he just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. As the saying goes, 'Alls fair in love and war'.